The Monsanto´s Case by Mario Salgado F.
Sciences Po/International Intellectual Property, Professor Rachel Roumet
When we find out the role and characteristics of a company, usually the first thing to do is enter to its website, because there probably we will find all the information that we need. Today we want toknow the company "Monsanto" and if we enter to its homepage it is presented as “an agricultural company. We apply innovation and technology to help farmers around the world produce more while conserving more. We help farmers grow yield sustainably so they can be successful, produce healthier foods, better animal feeds and more fiber, while also reducing agriculture's impact on our environment.” Atfirst sight, it appears to be a company that provides services to the agriculture improving productivity for those responsible for working the land, however, when we leave the company´s website and write its name on the most popular browser online, we note that 9 out of 10 results match Monsanto controversies and disputes with private organizations, mainly related to the toxicity of their products andinfringements of Intellectual Property Rights by their detractors. So, what do Monsanto products have that bring the discontent of the farmers? Was it correct the use that Monsanto has given the laws of Intellectual Property? In this essay we will try to answer these questions raised. First, Monsanto is a world leader in genetically modified foods, which are called to be the food of the future dueto its interesting qualities, such as “the highest-yielding conventional and biotech seeds on the market, advanced traits and technologies that enable more nutritious and durable crops or the safest and most effective crop protection solutions. However, those benefits listed are supported by the company itself and a lot of people in the world, thanks to the advertisement oftheir products. Just with a simple search in “Youtube”, you can find commercial spots of the Multinational, hence it is not difficult to realize that they are investing a lot of money on them. As a result, the transgenic crops have grown rampantly in the last decade, reaching in 2007 more than 100 hectares around the world, and the U.S. remains as the largest producer of transgenic crop with more than a half of the globalproduction. In fact, the International Service for the Acquisition o Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), estimated that in the coming years the production will duplicate. “By 2015, ISAAA predicts more than 20 million farmers will plant 200 million hectares of biotech crops in about 40 countries.” As we can see, the production is gripping the world, due to the increased production course isinteresting to the agriculture’s world, and the company is a “provider of the seed technology for 90 percent of the world’s genetically engineered (GE) crops.” Now the question everyone is asking is: Are real these renowned benefits of the transgenic foods? After watching the interesting documentary of the French journalist Marie-Monique Robin dubbed “The World according to Monsanto”we could be witnessing the fact that transgenic foods do not have the features noted above. In addition, they constitute a serious threat to human and animal health due to its high growth. In terms of Intellectual Property, this great command of the multinational is because it has patents in many countries around the world, and where it do not has a patent it is present as well, but we will discuss this below. In lightof the analysis of the case, the thesis of this paper is as follows: “For Monsanto, it is becoming an ill use of Intellectual Property, especially away from its purposes and not fulfilling the requirements to be worthy of patents, thus the transgenic patents should be stripped to Monsanto”.
Are patentable the genetically modified organisms (hereinafter GMO) It has been noted that on...